user:null wrote: ↑Tue Aug 23, 2022 1:56 pm
Honestly, from ABC13 to Space City Weather, all these forecasters just suck. All you see is lipservice and flimsy ad hoc justifications, there's no real substance at all.
NWS discussion tends to be the most informative. But even there, some of the same faults can occur, as seen in @Cromagnum's above screenshot.
Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
251 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022
...New SYNOPSIS, SHORT TERM, LONG TERM, MARINE...
.SYNOPSIS...
Issued at 250 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022
We've pushed deep enough into our messy week to gain at least some
clarity on the rainfall situation for the rest of the week.
Earlier rains stayed progressive enough that, outside of a couple
isolated instances, flooding did not become a concern. And though
the front has stalled over our area, it is becoming weak and
diffuse enough that without the earlier rain creating an area more
susceptible to flooding, we've been able to cancel the flood
watch we had in place.
That's not to say the rest of the week is dry - we're definitely
going to continue to see dreary, rainy conditions through the rest
of the week. In fact, the strongest storms could still cause very
isolated flooding issues if they happen to occur over spots known
to flood easily. It's more that this type of threat is not much
different from the typical, baseline flooding threat we see from
storm development in this area. So, bright side, the potential for
a concentrated, elevated flooding threat is much diminished. Down
side, this is still Southeast Texas and things can still escalate
quickly in localized spots when storms happen.
&&
.SHORT TERM...
(This evening through Wednesday Night)
Issued at 250 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022
Welp, that flood watch turned out to be an awful forecast by me.
Don't get me wrong - if I'm going to bust, I'd rather have put out
a watch and not needed it than to have skipped the watch and wish
I had issued one. But I'd really much rather have just made the
right forecast in the first place.
One thing I was right about was to be suspicious of the model
guidance on a situation so driven by mesoscale influences. It just
turns out I mistrusted in the wrong direction. Rather than bog
down and stall out over our north, yesterday's storms appeared to
stay progressive enough to shove right on through to the coastal
plain, keeping rainfall amounts manageable for all but a handful
of spots for which flood advisories were issued.
So, from here on out...I'm going to remain suspicious of the model
guidance, particularly the deterministic stuff. Ultimately, we
still have an environment that should support continued periods of
shower and storm development. We've got 2+ inches of precipitable
water, a stalled out boundary, and some inflow from the Gulf to
continue the moisture supply. But...that inflow is a little
veered, so probably not as efficient as it could be. Plenty of
cloud cover will probably hold back boundary layer heating, which
may limit instability somewhat. And, really, the vertical
structure of the atmosphere from boundary layer to upper levels
don't look particularly exceptional for supporting lift. It is
definitely a mixed bag for supporting stronger storms and high
rain rates...and once we removed training/slow moving storms from
the equation, I really do think we find ourselves back closer to
the baseline threat level of flooding rain for the area (I just
hope I haven't swung back too far the other direction in my
thinking and am missing some mesoscale feature that could promote
flooding).
